obscure
by Mondie
Summary: .h o w. .c a n. .a. .n e w s i e. .b e. .a l o n e.?


Obscure

[by Mondie]

Naïve and sweet and attractive: the adjectives my girls use to describe me. Naïve and happy and content: the opinions of my friends. Naïve and angry and alone: how I think of myself.

But how can a newsie be alone?

I am tired of playing fair.

"Oh, Mush can be counted on," they say, "just ask Mush." "Mush won't mind," they assure one another, "he's optimistic." But what happens when I don't want to be counted on? When I don't want to be asked? And how will they take it when they realize that I do mind? Not only that I mind, but that I am stretched so thin that I'm liable to break any moment?

I'm scared.

I'm scared about my future. Normal fifteen-year olds aren't, are they? Normal teenagers laugh and joke and go to school and smile. They don't wake up in the mornings wondering how many of the same faces will be going to sleep in their beds that night, and how many will have been left lying, bleeding to death, in a gutter with the few pennies earned that day freshly snatched from their pockets. And if normal kids could see the things we street rats know as day-to-day life, they would weep for their friends lost.

My lost friends are not why I cry myself to sleep.

How am I supposed to get ahead? I'm not Jack Kelly, able to sweet-talk myself out of any problem. Neither am I David Jacobs, with schooling to prove my ideas as knowledge. I'm not Kid Blink, charming to a fault, or Racetrack, with wit and sarcasm to hide my insecurities. I'm just Mush.

And I'm frightened to be alone.

But how can a newsie be alone?

One day this will end. I won't be a newsie anymore. I won't look into the eyes of my comrades to see years' worth of defeat's bitter glaze hardening over the initial enthusiasm we all began with. I won't hear smothered sobs of helpless newsboys who are invincible in sunlight, yet just as without hope as the rest of us come night. I won't notice twelve-year old boys selling their bodies to bigwig businessmen under inconspicuous settings for an extra dollar a day. I won't wake up to find earwigs in my boots, spiders in my ears, and moths methodically chewing holes through each and every semi-decent shirt I own.

Then again, who's to say I'll even wake?

Every bum you pass on the street is me. The mother with five children and no husband is me. The man who you robbed and stabbed last week is me. The whore wearing rouge in daylight is me. The bootblack you "forgot" to pay yesterday is me. Every five-year old with permanent scars from factory work for two pennies a week is me. Every rapist you flee from, every killer who haunts your nighttime horrors, every thief who steals your money is me. We are creatures of the street.

And we are all obscure.

We are all alone.

But how can a newsie be alone?

Knowing each other's quirks and talents to the slightest detail, we newsies are constantly surrounded by fraternity. Brotherhood is not merely a symbol for us, as it is to you. And yet we all know the sense of betrayal, the sharp, acidic pain of a turned friend, and the fear of anyone who has the power to hurt and destroy us.

We're all good at hiding it. Peering straight into our eyes, you won't see the sorrow. You couldn't find the number of street fights I was involved in today, even if you searched for a hundred years. It's not even fathomable that you'll discover my real name. There is a code among us, a sworn secrecy among the damned. We are at constant warfare with you.

Have you ever truly enjoyed the sun? On a brisk autumn morning, when the air is so crisp that it's liable to break off in your hand, have you ever noticed the sun's poking fingers, stretching to envelope your arm, then your side, and finally your whole body in its red-hot glow? When the winter frost sparkles from glistening buildings, did you ever see each and every miniature sun trapped beneath the ice's surface, trying to break free of the death grip? When spring arrives, bursting green and boasting purple flowers, did you ever before notice how the yellow sun was blooming radiant along with the blossoms in the trees? And as you complain in the summer about the heat, _we will increase our strides; the sun is our provider, our benefactor, our lover. We adore her, and it is only we who, in the baking heat of summer's coals, remember the chill of her absence in the winter months._

Yet onward we toil, unaware of even ourselves, concentrating on only the _other side, the greater good, that which we strive to be._

We strive to be you.

Only when we break out of hell's fiery grip will we leave behind loneliness.

And yet, how can a newsie be alone?

[I don't own ANYTHING in this story. Nodda person, nodda place, nodda thing.]


End file.
